She deemed the pizzarito inadequate and "not even pizza." Which got me thinking: What would a true pizza burrito consist of?

I'm not going to lie: aside from "risotto as the rice component," my first attempt at a pizza burrito is more "pizza stuff rolled up in a tortilla" than a 1-for-1 substitution of pizza toppings for burrito guts.

Risotto is versatile when it comes to riffing on flavors. So I decided to use tomato sauce as the liquid. I had a 28-ounce can of San Marzano–style tomatoes sitting around. I puréed that and partially followed Kenji's excellent guide to perfect risotto. (In his guide, he shows how to make always-creamy risotto with a nutty flavor—and how to do it by adding almost all the cooking liquid at once.)

I added all but 3/4 cup of the puréed tomatoes to 1 cup of carnaroli rice. After the rice had absorbed most of the tomato sauce and I had added the reserved sauce, I added a 1/2 cup grated Parmesan and some basil.

Truth be told, if I were making actual risotto, I'd be disappointed by the sticky nature of this "risotto." That's no fault of the Food Lab recipe I used but likely the result of too little liquid. I wasn't that concerned about achieving a creamy result, though, because that wouldn't work as well in a burrito. So this slightly clumpy tomato-infused rice was perfect for the purpose at hand.

Once I had the rice made, it was a simple matter of checking the fridge for other ingredients, which would inform my pizzarito-making. I knew I wanted to do a plain pizza "Margheritto," which was my first round of pizzaritos.

It's almost as essential to set up your mise en place for pizzaritos as it is for pizza. I warmed the flour tortillas briefly in a large pan (about 5 seconds a side) before flopping them onto sheets of aluminum foil for eventually wrapping. It's a good idea to heat your oven to 400°F, too, so you can plop the pizzaritos in there for a good heating. (You can skip this step if your risotto is still hot and can melt the mozzarella on its own.)

It'd been a while since I'd last wrapped a burrito, and the first few were trial and error as far as getting the stuffing amounts correct—about 3/4 cup risotto per 10-inch burrito tortilla, followed by two large pinches Parmesan and a handful of shredded mozzarella. Roughly chop or tear some basil and throw that in before wrapping.

After about 10 minutes in the hot oven, the mozzarella should be melted. Or skip the oven and refrigerate or freeze so your future self can get his or her pizzarito on.

I had some vegetables and Italian sausage on hand, do I figured I'd do a full on "supreme"-style pizzarito: peppers, onions, Italian sausage, and a few shakes of red chile pepper flakes.

Even after snacking on leftovers last night, I still can't decide if I like these things. The individual components taste good, and if you close your eyes and don't think about it, they all taste good together. For me, the anticipation that this is going to be an actual burrito is a bit disconcerting.

Still, it would be a little fun to truly figure out what the 1-for-1 analogues are between burrito burritos and pizzaburritos. Any suggestions out there from the peanut gallery?

About the author: Adam Kuban is the founder of Slice, where he has been blogging about pizza for more than eight years. You should follow him on Twitter: @akuban.

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About the Author

Adam Kuban founded Slice (RIP, 2003–2014) where he has written thousands of blog posts about pizza. He also created A Hamburger Today and served as Serious Eats's founding editor (2006–2010) after having sold those sites to SE. He's now exploring the possibility of opening his own pizza joint through an apprenticeship at Paulie Gee's in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. In his spare time, he runs Margot's Pizza, an occasional bar-style-pizza pop-up named for his toddler daughter.